1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to an apparatus for removing material from a work area and, more particularly, to such an apparatus adapted to remove weeds, prunings, trash and the like from along row crops and between adjoining plants within the row during substantially continuous movement therealong.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
The mechanization of agriculture in a continuing effort to minimize overhead expense while increasing production has produced a multitude of labor saving devices and farm practices. Many of these have successfully achieved their intended objectives without negative impact. Others either have not achieved their objectives or have aggravated or created other problems requiring solution.
The cultivating, harvesting and pruning of row crops have seen substantial mechanization for nearly all types of crops. However, the control afforded with manual labor is absent. The trash produced in such mechanized operations is, for the most part, simply scattered randomly throughout the area with the greatest accumulation being around the bases of the plants. The trash falling between the rows can easily be cleared or disked into the soil, but that falling adjacent to the plants and particularly that falling between adjoining plants within the row has been difficult or impossible to remove by mechanized means.
For example, such trash produced in the cultivating, harvesting and pruning of grapevines, fruit and nut trees and the like falls in greatest volume immediately adjacent to the plants and between adjoining plants in the row. It cannot economically be removed using manual labor. Such prior art mechanized devices as have existed have not effectively removed such trash and have, to varying degrees of severity, damaged the trunks of the grapevines and trees. Such damage is not only harmful to the plants in and of itself, but penetration of the outer epidermal layer of the trunks provides access for pests and hazardous substances to the interior of the plants.
With the increasing use of drip and sprinkler irrigation in farming operations, such prior art attempts at the mechanized removal of such trash have been rendered largely useless. The mechanical devices rip out water lines, tear down risers and otherwise damage such irrigation systems, trellis structures and the like to the point that they are entirely unsatisfactory for the purpose.
Similarly, public and governmental resistance to and prohibition of the use of herbicides has limited the extent to which weeds can be chemically controlled adjacent to row crops. Accordingly, weed control is again becoming a more troublesome problem in farming operations. As with trash removal, prior art mechanized removal of weeds in and adjacent to row crops has not proved satisfactory because of the damage caused to the plants, trellis structures, irrigation systems and the like. On the other hand, the manual removal of weeds within the rows is largely cost prohibitive.
Therefore, it has long been known that it would be desirable to have an apparatus for removing material from a work area which is particularly well suited to the removal of weeds, prunings, trash and the like from adjacent to row crops such as grapevines, fruit and nut trees and the like; which is fully capable of removing all such trash, both immediately adjacent to the row and between adjoining plants within the row; which is sufficiently sensitive in operation to avoid damage to the plants within the row as well as irrigation systems, trellis structures and the like; and which can be operated economically by both large and small scale farming operations.